The Siege of Derry

Set around Derry’s walls, the Siege app combines GPS and mobile technology with contemporary real life accounts and dramatized reactions from townspeople to bring to life the key events of the 1689 Siege. Excerpts from the diaries and journals of Captain Thomas Ash, Reverend George Walker and Captain Richards are contained in this educational, atmospheric espionage activity.

Siege of Derry Experience

You can experience the Siege of Derry App in three ways.

Play the espionage game on Derry’s walls (requires GPS)

Can you survive the 1689 siege as a Jacobite spy? Your mission is to look after Jacobite interests in the garrison town of Londonderry. You are their eyes and ears in the city. Walk along the walls and collect any useful conversations you overhear. Use the cannon to send your accounts into the Jacobite camp. Avoid detection at all costs! Remember to keep on the move or you’ll attract the attention of the guards and be thrown in prison.
The app will guide you to the start of the game at Hangman’s Bastion which is located between Butcher’s Gate and Magazine Gate on Derry’s walls. There you will be given your mission.

The map interface guides you around the walls, shows location of accounts and warns of approaching guards.

Press the collect button to collect each account.

Walk along the walls in an anti-clockwise direction (towards Butcher’s Gate) and listen to the conversations of passersby. Collect the contemporary accounts and use the cannon in the bastions to send your collected accounts into the Jacobite camp.

Use the cannon in the bastions to send the accounts into the Jacobite camp.

Keep on the move and watch out for the guards. If they catch you, you’ll be thrown into prison.

If you are caught you will need to pick up the discarded key to be released.

Health screens inform you of your health status. If you survive the siege and collect many accounts you will receive a medal. Your mission ends above Magazine Gate.

Listen to the audio timeline on Derry’s walls (requires GPS)

Listen to eyewitness accounts of the Siege of Derry on location. Walk along the atmospheric city walls and listen to events where they unfolded. The app will guide you to the start of the timeline at Hangman’s Bastion which is located between Butcher’s Gate and Magazine Gate on Derry’s walls. Walk along the walls in an anti-clockwise direction (towards Butcher’s Gate) and listen to the conversations of passersby. The timeline ends above Magazine Gate.

Listen to the audio timeline elsewhere.

This version of the app can be played anywhere. The timeline is represented as accounts along map of the walls of Derry. Working in an anti-clockwise direction and starting at Hangman’s Bastion, click on each account icon sequentially to listen to an audio timeline of contemporay accounts of the Siege.

Londonderry, November 1688: The Earl of Tyrconnell has moved Lord Mountjoy and his regiment from Derry to Dublin. The town has been left undefended …Can you survive the 1689 siege as a Jacobite spy?

This software was licenced to the Northern Ireland Environment Agency by the BBC.